CRACK

70,000.

Gone.

In a week.

Crack.

Actually.

A crack.

Was selling the gaffe.

Not quite breaking even.

A big improvement.

On borrowing to bail.

Then last week.

A bidding war.

It's war. Baby.

Suddenly up 70.000.

All dandy.

Hands in air.

Wheeeeeee

Capitalist roller-coaster.

Enter the surveyor.

A crack.

Crack fluency required.

Enter my surveyor.

We're looking at 10,000.

Fine.

But crack 's now a sobering force,

Sobering.

The purveyor of madness and rage?

So into equity's duplicity.

Rode my 70,000

Plus 800.

The cost of.

My lesson in crack.

JOUJOUKA - ROCKING THE CASBAH

The little blue hills of Ah Serif stretch out in a breathtaking vista that the dusty Maghreb tumbleweed town of Ksar El Kebir does nothing to prepare you for.
Home to some 600 souls, the village of Joujouka, a couple of hours' drive south of Tangiers, is pretty impoverished.
But what it lacks in modernity, it makes up for in breathtaking beauty.
The hills roll in all directions, lush and way greener than what you'd expect from a country that leads down into the Sahara.

The view from Hamri's grave in Joujouka

Beauty, however, is not the only surprise the tiny village of Joujouka throws at the tired traveller; there's also the music.
And nothing prepares you for the music.
Pipes and flute have put this village on the map and made it a musical mecca, a place of pilgrimage for sonic subversives, thrill seekers, artists and odd balls of all hues.
The guest list here reads like a veritable counter-culture "who's who."
The wild spectral sounds are what first lured the group's manager, Irishman Frank Rynne, up these hot, dusty hills.
Frank and the Masters now host an annual festival every June, an event of pure wonder.

Then an aspiring rock star, Frank Rynne was lured up to the village at the age of 19 by one of the only villagers to achieve fame and notoriety outside of the world of Sufi trance music, the late great Moroccan painter Hamri,  the friend and companion of Beat icons; the artists and writers Brion Gysin and William Burroughs.
"I need to hear this music every day," was Gysin's instant response.
"The world needs more of this diabolical music" was what Burroughs had to say.
Primordial and relentless, the Master Musicians' sound pulsates Africa and shrieks the Maghreb.
Onto the rolling simplicity of primal beat comes the ghiata sound, the wailing of of a psychic souk.
Whining and droning,  the pipes ensare you in loops and ever decreasing circles while bass bewilders and beat hypnotises.
Then suddenly you are there.
At the centre of the souk, in the eye of a storm of madness.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka at their spectral best. Pic Herman Vanaershcot

Here is where western rock n roll takes you for a fleeting finale - the subversive edges of the Velvet Underground's white noise, the nail biting frenzy of Radiohead's symphonic shrieks, the junk like rush of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
But this is no finale.
What is a crescendo for western rock n roll is a mere point of departure for this crew.
The Masters, who range in age from 40 to 80,  are just kicking off.
And when it all gets too much,  when you think you can't take any more, that's precisely what you get.
Then more and more and more.
Until you are lifted up and carried on a wave of screaming nerve-end shredding, strobe flashing ecstasy.

This is the oldest sound you have ever heard. This is most modern sound you have heard.
This is rock and roll. This is religion. This is political. This is freedom. This is ecstasy.
This is sonic jewelry forged in front of your blinking eyes
Nerve ends alight. Limbs tremble.
It's trance time.
Your mind screams 'stop, stop, enough' and yet some unknown voice inside screams 'more, more, faster, faster'.
This is fucking psychiatric. This is orgasmic.
Karen, bug eyed, the patron of Listons on Camden Street turns to me and says:
"This is madness"




Blessed with sacred powers, the music has actually been touted for centuries as a cure for madness.
Needless to say, there's a whiff of Kif to this whole affair
But there's also a perfect integrity which is very rarely seen in events that head this far north of avant-garde.


Madness indeed.



Welcome to Joujouka.
The tiny village in the Rif mountains that is home to the worlds oldest rock n roll band.

Boujeloud. Half goat, half man. Half Bez, half Pan.

Ramones? Kid stuff
Pick any tempo lifting, air punching DJ sonic ruse from Chicago to the Balearics and you'll find these boys have been beating the out same groove for centuries.
As Jarvis would say "this is hardcore."
Timothy Leary callesd these geezers a 4,000 year old rock n roll band.
Anyhow, one thing is for sure; they well and truly rock the fucking Casbah.


(Nice to see Lonely Planet picking up on the review of the festival that appeared in the Irish Times)

Musings On Quinn, O Brien And Ireland's Corporate Coup D'etat

Glad to see some real views are being aired behind the scenes.  (See below)
Cos this is the real deal.
This is the last 30 years of adulation mainly of FF cheer led unbridled capitalism coming home to roost.

Perhaps not that suprising when you have a Taoiseach - and source of state contract - taking the absolute piss out of the State and the law of the land.

You buy the media. And if you can't buy off the odd individual you strut like the legal assassin and try and silence people with court intimidation and deep slimey striped pockets.

Ganley with RTE is just the corner boy version of Denis O-ligarch Brien with Browne and Smith.

Sean Quinn has his gombeen goebbels in John Waters and in Michael Harding's eloquent but bog ignorant support.
Not to mention "Rent A Christian" Father Darcy.


This is where sites like this come into their own, it is essential that we say/repeat what the billionaire bullies are trying to prevent being said.

Quinn is just picking up the robber baron's baton where Lowry and O'Brien left off.

If this shit is not fought now, we are well and truly screwed.

This is commercial coup d'etat type Paddy-style..

The others - the pols - at least have the decency to come and lie to us and seek our support every few years.

We can then get rid of them.

A small compensation given the damage they have done.

But could you imagine what the sorry story would be like if the whole show was in the hands of devious corrupt bullying billionaire gangsters.


"In private, meanwhile, Fine Gael TDs were even more scathing about the former GAA president Mr Kelly, who at one stage was being touted by Mr Kenny's inner circle as a possible presidential candidate.

They noted that "Kelly really let the mask slip, those comments were remarkably naive''.

One source claimed: "There is astonishment that anyone who was a member of Fine Gael would express themselves in that fashion, he sounded like a member of Fianna Fail lite.''

They added that "for some time a lot of Fine Gael figures have felt Kelly is a one-trick pony trading on going to GAA matches but this gombeen green gurrier stuff, poor Sean [Quinn] sure he's one of our own''.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/co...w-3190021.html

Oligarchs are buying media organs to attack state organs, seek immunity and lay down covering fire for their commercial rape and pillage.

If you were to listen to Quinn's PR blitz - which seems to have carefully copied that done by D O-ligarch Brien - you would think employing a village give you moral cover for state pillage.

This is what has Denis O-ligarch Brien threatening Vincent Browne.

Shout it from the fucking roof-tops.

"IT HARDLY matters which of the two oligarchs get control of Independent News and Media, for neither should be allowed to. Not because of any moral turpitude on the part of the oligarchy represented by Denis O’Brien or that represented by the O’Reilly family.

First, Independent News and Media is far too large, and the power it gives to whomever controls it is oppressive. On this island INM owns the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday World, the Evening Herald, the Irish Daily Star, the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life. It owns 13 local newspapers and also one of the largest newspaper and magazine distribution agencies, Newspread, plus several of the largest print works on the island. It has a strong presence on the internet with independent.ie."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...314874703.html

John Waters - A Gombeen Goebbels

Back in the simple day there was John Healy.
Penning nostalgie de la bog boue.
Then along came John Waters.
Grabbed a pen and started to lash out shrieked up, dumbed down John.
John Snr though was a worthy foe.
And not devoid of some literary talent.
Although also enthralled by the rural shyster soul,  Healy would never have penned bilge like some of John's gems:
"Katy French was a personification of our fantasies, of our sense of what we were becoming, of how we might unfold ourselves. She was ...perhaps the most spectacular light on the skyline, a meteorite of desire plummeting through the Irish zeitgeist."

John proclaimed that the above was typed through his "tears!"
In the unlikely event of Healy succumbing to such suckerdom, he would have had the
wit to shut the fuck up about it.


But John Junior is a tosser.

                                                                'spelling smug'

Waters is a contradictory, hysterical, attention-seeking personification of all that he noisily derides.
His very existence contradicts all his Barry's Tea Bag conspiracies about the D4 monopoly of the media
He is an elitist.
He is a snob.
Accidents such as place of birth are serious issues to John Boy.
Like most snobs, he is also a boot licker.
An apologist for corruption.
(Provided it comes with the right accent)
He is an idle contrarian - unlike Vincent who is an active and interesting one.
Like most bitter and twisted people he has a big chip on his shoulder.
(Remember one of first big forays into the limelight was his attack on U2. And what was the substance of his attack - who did U2 with Rattle and Hum think they were acting as if they were  global rock stars?
Sure John knew them back in the day; grasshoppers rant knees bitterness etc.

This is from a previous occasion when John's antics came up for discussion.

Quote:

Waters was always an idiot, a Khmer Rouge like culchie who dismissed the supposed pretensions of Dublin 4 and the moral flaws of media land while lauding the duplicity and guile of the peasant as some form of native charm. In his dumb divisive vision, he was blind to the fact that the victims of those he praised for "pulling one over" were ourselves. His 80s In Dublin attack on U2 first revealed his limited inner begrudger. His Dancing at the Crossroads was John Healy for slow learners. Waters made a total fool of himself with his tear stained eulogy to Kathy French as if she was a present day Oscar Wilde.

See the current debate here on John as our national "bean caoineadh"



Back in the day Waters was the monkey to Sean Doherty's organ grinder.

Today he's dancing to Quinn's plaintive tune.

Quinn is not to blame.  He's a visionary and yet he's a dupe.

A victim of vulture finance.  A world where no-one actually makes anything. 

And sure the Quinns were mere small "small fry"
Easily gobbled up by Anglo.

Big bad Anglo. Little boy Quinn.

Sound likes a PR trope.

But we all partied.

Yet the Quinns are the best of the best.

The Kennedys of Cavan.

Sean may have gambled billions. But he only played cards with a tenner.

Great employer too.

And this despite the fact that it is now perfectly clear that Sean ran his sound insurance business, reaping the same potential of Ponzi that Walters takes issue with elsewhere.

Logic? An unnecessary Dublin 4 trifle. A media amuse bouche.

Could you imagine the dung smeared crap we would be subject to if Fitzpatrick wielded a hurl instead of a club and Drumm banged on in thick Corkonian not finest Malahide.

Tea-Baggery is the only system that allows you present arguments riddled with so many holes

Here's Johny with his Barry's Tea Bag Thought.

No logic, no consistency,  no sense.

Just the incoherent cries of culchie court jester seeking attention.

Waters is a Class A fool.

Like that tool Lowry, he is a constant source of national embarrassment.

At least Myers laces his pieces with erudition.

The best John can rise to is "cute out."

A Gombeen Goebbels.

A blight on the intellectual landscape.

A Bungalow Ditz.

Go on John!

You show em up in Dublin.

Celebrity Banisteoir.

Go dance on their ice.

Oh.

One last thing.

All this twirling on ice rinks.

All this Eurovision fawning.

Jesus.

Better be a big big phobe.

Or the boys might call you homo.

Long haired faggot.

'Mammy'

Imagine the horror of that.